By Bongani Majola
THE deadline to legalise 1 127 booms closing off access to roads in the City's suburbs is less than a week away and the Johannesburg Roads Agency has warned ratepayers it will remove illegal barriers.
Residents have until Thursday 17 July to submit their applications to legalise their road closures, according to the JRA, the agency responsible for the city's road network design, regulation, maintenance and repair.
So far the agency has received six applications to legalise security barriers.
"The JRA will take four to five weeks to evaluate the applications, which includes new applications and requests to maintain existing road closures. Then there will be a dual process of removal and evaluation," JRA managing director Mavela Dlamini said last Thursday.
Booms that did not fall under the evaluation procedures would be taken down by the JRA from 18 July. "We have estimated it will cost the City of Johannesburg about R3 000 to remove one structure. We should be able to take down about five a day," said JRA's development and control manager Liam Clark.
The City had set aside R500 000 for the removal and storage of boom gates. The JRA would make use of storage facilities in the areas, so that those who wanted to reclaim their material could do so, "at a fee", Clark added. "Though the City and the JRA do not wish to incur the costs of taking down illegal structures, we have set aside R500 000 for the removal and storage of material. We are aware costs can escalate to R5 million but we want to avoid such a situation".
Dlamini appealed to communities and residents' associations to remove the structures themselves.
The illegal booms were predominantly concentrated in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, particularly Wendywood, Bramley, Hyde Park, Bryanston and Lyndhurst, according to the JRA.
Residents have had more than three months to complete the application procedures.
The JRA stipulated that only those applications that complied fully with the City of Johannesburg requirements would be approved. Security barriers would only be considered on roads that were local distributors, cul-de-sacs or access-only streets. Applicants were also required to submit a traffic impact study confirming that traffic flow would not be disrupted or displaced by the closures.
The applications also had to have the support of 90% of the residents, may not cause vehicles or pedestrians to incur lengthy delays, may not interfere with access for emergency and maintenance vehicles and there had to be adequate road signage.
